See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287331971 A resilient landscape at Teixoneres Cave (MIS 3; Moià, Barcelona, Spain): The Neanderthals as disrupting agent Article in Quaternary International · April 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.077 CITATIONS READS 3 465 14 authors, including: Jordi Rosell Ardèvol Ruth Blasco Universitat Rovira i Virgili Centro de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana 240 PUBLICATIONS 3,683 CITATIONS 164 PUBLICATIONS 1,947 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Florent Rivals Chacón María Gema Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social 170 PUBLICATIONS 2,056 CITATIONS 68 PUBLICATIONS 570 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Khorramabad Project View project The European saber-toothed cats (Homotherium latidens) of Schöningen View project All content following this page was uploaded by Eneko Iriarte on 29 December 2015. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Quaternary International xxx (2015) 1e16 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint A resilient landscape at Teixoneres Cave (MIS 3; Moia, Barcelona, Spain): The Neanderthals as disrupting agent * Jordi Rosell a, b, , Ruth Blasco c, Florent Rivals a, b, d, M. Gema Chacon a, b, e, Maite Arilla a, b, Edgard Camaros a, b, Anna Rufa a, b, Carlos Sanchez-Hern andez a, b, Andrea Picin f, g, b, Miriam Andres h, Hugues-Alexandre Blain a, b, Juan Manuel Lopez-García a, b, Eneko Iriarte i, Artur Cebria b, j a Area de Prehistoria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Avinguda de Catalunya 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain b IPHES, Institut Catala de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolucio Social, Zona Educacional 4, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona, Spain c Departament de Prehistoria, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Facultat de Lletres-Edifici B, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain d ICREA, Barcelona, Spain e UMR 7194, Departement de Prehistoire, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 1 rue Rene Panhard, 75013 Paris, France f Bereich für Ur- und Frühgeschichtliche Archaologie,€ Friedrich Schiller Universitat€ Jena, Lobdergraben€ 24a, Jena 07743, Germany g Neanderthal Museum, Talstrasse 300, Mettmann 40822, Germany h Departamento de Prehistoria, Universidad Complutense (UCM), c/Prof. Aranguren s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain i Departamento de Ciencias Historicas y Geografía, Universidad de Burgos, Villadiego s/n, 09001 Burgos, Spain j Seminari d'Estudis i Recerques Prehistoriques (SERP), Facultat de Geografia i Historia, Dept de Prehistoria, Historia Antiga i Arqueologia. Universitat de Barcelona, C/Montalegre, 6-8, 08001 Barcelona, Spain article info abstract Article history: The debate over hominidecarnivore interactions during the Pleistocene has been mainly approached from Available online xxx a human perspective, with the aim of contributing to the knowledge of the evolution of human cultural capabilities in the different periods. Regarding the European Middle Palaeolithic, it is most commonly Keywords: concluded that Neanderthals were clearly superior to carnivores in the context of competitive relation- Middle Palaeolithic ships, with respect to both prey and the occupied space. Therefore, the presence of some human groups in Teixoneres Cave the environments usually inhabited by carnivores could be perceived, from an ecological point of view, as a Hominidecarnivore interactions disturbance in the balance of the ecosystems. In order to assess the ecological impact of these human Resilience groups, the present study analyses the Unit III of Teixoneres Cave (MIS 3; Moia, Barcelona, Spain) through a comparison of palaeoecological and archaeological data. The site is located in the highlands between the two main rivers connecting the central region of Catalonia with the Mediterranean coast: the Llobregat and the Ter. Palynological and paleontological data indicate a cold landscape dominated by woodlands and some wet meadows. The high vertebrate diversity recorded in this stratigraphic unit suggests an envi- ronment marked by a balanced predatoreprey dynamic, which may have been interrupted by the occa- sional presence of small human groups. According to the archaeological data, these human groups tended to predate the same prey as did carnivores, which may have generated a certain perturbation in the system. However, the small size of the groups and the brevity of their visits to Teixoneres Cave seem to have minimised the perturbation, allowing the environment to recover its original balance. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction problems arising from their condition as palimpsests. This phe- nomenon is commonly found in many European Middle and Late Archaeological assemblages resulting from alternate occupa- Pleistocene caves, and it introduces difficulties into establishing the tions between hominids and carnivores often lead to interpretative duration of the respective occupations of carnivores and humans, mainly in archaeological assemblages without evidence of contact between these groups. In these cases, the record is often inter- * Corresponding author. Area de Prehistoria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV)- preted as exhibiting coexistence and/or continuous competition, IPHES, Institut Catala de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolucio Social, Zona Educacional 4, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), 43007 Tarragona, Spain. which, in terms of evolutionary ecology, suggests a high degree of E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Rosell). predation pressure throughout this period. In view of the high http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.077 1040-6182/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. Please cite this article in press as: Rosell, J., et al., A resilient landscape at Teixoneres Cave (MIS 3; Moia, Barcelona, Spain): The Neanderthals as disrupting agent, Quaternary International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.077 2 J. Rosell et al. / Quaternary International xxx (2015) 1e16 degree of competition (both to obtain food and occupy the space), development of a strategy based on the search for these resources some researchers have proposed the existence of coevolutionary during the European Middle Pleistocene have also been suggested processes, whose origin can be found in the beginning of hominin (e.g., Auguste, 1995). Therefore, the European Middle and Later evolution towards nonprimate behaviour (see a review in Stiner, Pleistocene archaeological data suggest a scenario in which homi- 2012). nins and large carnivores coexisted and in which the possible The problem has typically been tackled from a human conflicts between them were usually resolved in favour of homi- perspective, according to which human use of the caves, which nins. The hominins attributed to the Neanderthal deme seem to were frequented by carnivores, was one strategy within a range of have played a significant role from an ecological point of view, possible strategies for occupying territory (see the discussion in occupying the top of the trophic pyramid together with the large Villa and Soressi, 2000). In this respect, an important challenge for predators (or even a trophic level higher than that occupied by such the taphonomic discipline is to establish valid criteria for identi- predators). Taking this into account, this paper assesses the degree fying the type or types of carnivores involved in the accumulation of resilience of these kinds of systems subsequent to the impact of in order to infer the forms of competition that took place between short visits by small human groups. To do so, it compares the hominins and other predators (e.g., Stiner, 1998; Domínguez- palaeoecological and cultural data obtained up until the present at Rodrigo, 2001; Villa et al., 2004; Faith et al., 2007; Airvaux et al., the stratigraphic Unit III of Teixoneres Cave (Moia, Barcelona, 2012). However, there are little data regarding the impact of car- Spain), which has been interpreted as a hyena den/bear refuge nivores on the natural dynamics of the caves, and this phenomenon during MIS 3 in which some short-term occupations by Neander- can therefore be analysed only on the basis of results obtained from thals took place (Rosell et al., 2010; Rufa et al., 2014; Sanchez- palaeoecological predictive models or palaeospecies distribution Hernandez et al., 2014). models (e.g., Lorenzen et al., 2011; Rodríguez-Gomez et al., 2014). During the Pleistocene, caves were used by several carnivor- 2. Teixoneres Cave esdto a greater extent by some than by othersdin different sea- sons of the year. Winters seem to have been the season preferred by Teixoneres Cave is one of the two most significant cavities in the the majority of bear species, whereas hyenas and other smaller Toll Caves karstic system, 4 km to the east of Moia municipality carnivores could take advantage of these refuges during their (Barcelona, Spain) (Fig. 1). The karst's coordinates are 2 090 0200 E respective breeding seasons (Torres et al., 2007). The metabolic or and 41 480 2500 N, at 760 m a.s.l. From a geomorphological point of behavioural alterations that occurred during these critical mo- view, the region forms part of the highlands located between the ments could have been the main cause of death of most of these two main rivers, the Llobregat to the south and the Ter to the